Mrs. Flinger: A work in progress

Fixing Mrs. Flinger Feb 20, 2015

I'm currently working on this website. I want to add back the links to blogs I love, some ways to find content easier, and put in archive, at last, some of the ancient articles. Come back to see updates.

The Brand of Me Aug 13, 2009

It’s been coming to this for a long time, this merging of me vs me. I’ve pretended to be different: Professional Me and Personal Me. But honestly? I am only one person, not two threaded halves.
I am a multitude of rolls, but I am just me. I am as transparent and as open as anyone can be, equally giving way to hurt and laughter and insecurities and strength. I’m open to accepting new ideas, I love my family and my work and I give people the benefit of the doubt to an almost gullible level.
I am what I am and that’s all that I am. (Picture me giving you the pop-eye here. Or, in my case a “Pirate Eye.”)
Eaaeyyyyyy
It sounds old and cliche, but it’s taken me six years of Internet Identity to figure out that I’m the same person online and...
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Hidden (or not so much) messages of Motherhood Aug 10, 2009

Ellis Aug 09, 2009

I have a sound clip from 1997 that features my college roommates and I interviewing each other on “what we wanted to be doing in five years.” I’ve stumbled across that clip a few times since graduation, always giggling to myself and wondering if any of the other girls thought about those goals.
(1997)
“I’ll probably be teaching” G stated, matter of fact.
(She was.)
“I’ll be hiking or something,” Nicole mused. (She was.)
“I’ll be servicing humans,” (insert fits of laughter here for our Human Service Major friend wasn’t kidding) Paige giggled.
“I’ll be… um…” I offered. And this is how my young adult life started.
(1997)
(1999)
We’ve since gone on to graduate school,...
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In the quest of the perfect eyebrow Aug 08, 2009

I only started plucking my eyebrows in my late twenties. As in VERY late twenties. As in, I was already a mom and labeled thus, “mother plucker” my Mr. Flinger.
When it comes to beauty, I’m at a loss. Makeup? Learning how to apply that still. Hair? Well. I can blow dry! But as my friend Michelle stated in exasperation, “You don’t even have the RIGHT kind of flat iron.” I didn’t realize they went out of style. And apparently, I have an old style, the big one? With the FLAT IRON?
:: shrugs ::
Since 2004 when I started the quest for the perfect eyebrow I have done a lot of research. I’ve polled readers. I’ve goggled “how to pluck your eyebrows you stupid later bloomer.” I’ve even started a PhD in Plucking hairs (for)...
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Words We Aren’t Allowed to Say Aug 05, 2009

Words. They can be powerful. They can be meaningless. They can send chills down your spine. They can go in one ear and out the other.
Perplexing, yes?
Or is that just me getting all giddy to use a word like “PERPLEXING.”
Probably.
So why is it that we have all these “RULES” about words? They’re just… words. Meaningless until someone attaches a feeling around it.
We’ve called my daughter, “Stinker” her whole life. We’ve called her “Pooper” “Pooper scooper” (honestly, I have no idea why, but it’s a term of endearment, I swear) and “Stinker Butt.” We rarely call each other our real names in this house at all, actually. “Man Baby!” “Buddy” “Babe”...
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My snatch got stuck Aug 03, 2009

So I was talking to some good friends and one mentioned, “You know what I miss? Sneezing without having to tense up my cooter before hand.” And I joined in, “Oh, I KNOW!” But! BUT (There is always a but in there somewhere) “YOU didn’t even have to blow out your snatch.”
I reply, “I know, dude. I know. My snatch got stuck.”
We all have these wonderful visions of labor and delivery when we’re huge pregnant for the first time because it’s LOVELY! And NATURAL! and HOLY MOTHER JUST GET THE BABY OUTTA MY UTERUS. So we think of the wonderfulness of pushing, just like in the movies, a brand new four month old baby outta our snatch.
And then reality.
I labored for nearly 24 hours with my first. Her head got so jammed in to my...
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Community Aug 02, 2009

I watch the clock. 12:24. 12:25. ...
My daughter rambles on in the back-seat about her hair and her dress. “AnnaBella is going to LOVE my dress, Mommy!”
She has no idea what a failure I am.
She chats on and on about her invisible mice and her dress and her school friends and whose birthday it was today and whose birthday is next. I can barely hear her beneath my own self talk, “Great Big Parenting Fail. Can’t get child to a single thing on time, let alone a birthday party within two hours of the start. Well done, loser.”
I grab my iPhone, shaking the GPS one more time. I know where I’m going. I thought I did, at least. But the streets aren’t looking familiar.
We arrive, at last, as the sound of “Happy Birthday” pours out the open...
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The Tale of Costco (aka: Why you are thankful you don’t live by us) Jul 31, 2009

I hate Costco. I hate Costco the way alcoholics hate bars. The way recovering smokers hate Neil Diamond concerts.
My children, they amplify the situation.
We call Costco the $100 store. It’s the place you walk in needing two things and walk out with a tab well over $100. “We need diapers and toothpaste.” I mark it off the list. An hour and seventeen items later, the cashier says, “$234 dollars please.” Every. Single. Time.
My children begin to foam at the mouth about a mile before the turn in. “Are we going to COSTCO?!” my four year old yells. “Yes!” I reply. My two year old says, “SAMPLE? SAMPLE?” And then the foaming, it gets worse until the time we actually walk in to the store and I’m carting around two rabid...
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My son will already make a wonderful husband. And he’s two. Jul 30, 2009

As a girl, with a mom of girls, I never truly “got” the Mama’s Boy thing. But it happened before he was born. I thought it was because he was my second born, the baby I could comprehend before I saw him, the kicking that I already understood deep inside my belly.
Now I know it was because of him. Who he is.
I have two children and I connected with them both. I understand my daughter from a “been there” perspective. I can read her and I remember what it was like being a four year old starting ballet. I understand when she just needs time without her younger sibling and I identify with some of her frustrations with school friends.
But my son? My son gets ME. My two year old will ask, “k? Mommy?” If I cough. He will come up and grab my leg on a...
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My brush, literally, with fame (a blogHer tale) Jul 29, 2009

**April, 2013** Hello and welcome! If this is your first time here, I’d love to meet you. I’ve recently written about being diagnosed with Adult ADHD, spent much of last year traveling and went back to work full time as a Program Manager for Media at a large global company. My children are 8 and 6 and I love talking to people with similar stories. Be sure to say hi and pull up a chair. I’ll grab the coffee. (Or tea for my UK friends with milk and sugar.)**
I walked in to the keynote, searching the thousands of faces to find “my people.” I wonder in and out of tables bumping in to elbows and computers. I recognize a few features but I continue to bump, walk, bump, walk looking for my table.
I spot the table of women more familiar than their pictures or...
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